Is This Due to Catachrestic Cretins?

Hello davah

Because the comptrollers of society do not want people to be more than forelock-tugging serfs, just like working cattle beasts, many years ago a system of "dumbing down" of education was instituted, and continues to this day.

These present days, with the societal problems which exist, are a reflection of that "dumbing down'.

Children need to be taught how to learn, and then they will find the rewards of learning.

Let us hope they do not become Military, Politicians, Bankers, and of that ilk, but do something useful with their lives.

We all live here for only a few short years, on a one-way trip, without a second chance at life, and what we choose here determines our eternal destiny.

That is the most important lesson to learn in life.

The next learned lesson is that we should be helping others.

Kind Regards....

Spaki

Do you think that if. at least, the english speaking population was taught to correctly express themselves through language we would have less physical violence in the world or just better educated thugs?

Sparkstation,

Children need to be taught how to learn, and then they will find the rewards of learning.

Well said,

It has always been that parents always wanted thier children to have it better than they had it. I feel it took a wrong turn, where the children want immediate satisfaction, not having the patience not having to work for it, but having it done for them.

.......or do I sound like the grampa's of yesteryears.

good day,

phoenix911

Let's hear it for "Malapropisms" too!

People (mainly educators) started messing around with new theories on education starting in the 60's in the US, and it's my opinion that they made it worse little by little. I was very interested in learning when I was young, as were the vast majority of my schoolmates.

As for your query, "Do you think we are getting a massive fall of [sic] in professionalism and intelligence fueled by the media and politics?" My answer is, "No, I don't." We have perhaps seen a massive falloff in quality of education, but intelligence is only affected by genes (we may be inbreeding more now ). We see and hear, or read written statements, by politicians, via different forms of media, who seem to be rather poorly educated, but they aren't the only ones. Listen to an interview with a typical man-on-the-street whose house has just been hit by a tornado. Ignorance is growing all over.

Actually there is a long history of evidence that intelligence, the ability to innovatively solve new problems and learn new skills, is both genetic and environmental. There are many studies that indicate that people who regularly use their minds to solve problems and learn are more adept at learning and solving new problems. Additionally, now there is a third component to consider, there is evidence for epigenetic factors that are derived from the environmental factors that effected your parents and even their parents. So your parents age, diet, stress, drug habits, etc.. over their life prior to your conception could effect your development.

I do agee that the educators in the US have experimented with childrens educations for many decades now, in failed attempts to improve the previous existing systems. Additionally, there has been a massive decline in the intellectual requirements for public school teachers in the US since the 1950s, particularly since the 1980s. Many public school teachers are not much more than baby sitters who are fluent in spanish and english. Bureaucracy and teachers unions benefit from more teacher, not from more qualified teachers. So they tend towards practices that promote learning the concept of teaching and not the any knowledge within the skill set being taught. Thus a math teacher will likely know less about math than any technically educated college graduate, and maybe less than many business majors. However, the math teacher will know something about every failed teaching concept, how teachers unions operate, how to manage children with disabilities, how to manage problem parents, how to mitigate liability, how to pass on student problems to other teachers, etc.. I believe the School District in Washington, D.C has the correct idea. They hired someone with some outside business skills to streamline their bureaucracy, and clear some of the dead weight. Obviously the teachers union was up in arms, but they realized the have had to make some adjustments also to compete with charter schools that are out performing them. Charter schools are also a good idea as these programs typically hire people with Masters degrees in the field they teach, not bachelors degrees in liberal studies (this is the academic course of study for public elementary school teaching). It seems obvious to me that a person with a Masters Degree in Chemistry is just more qualified to teach than a credentialed Bachelors Degree in liberal studies with emphasis on secondary education in chemistry. However, public schools, because of laws implemented in part by lobbying from teachers unions and school bureaucrats prefer the latter. This originally allowed them to employ more teachers without having to compete with the pay scale of a professional, and allowed unions to retain more membership as their are few masters degrees in chemistry than bachelors degrees in liberal studies. however, much like the prison guards, teachers unions influence through the large number of teacher has grown in influence and pushes for a wage scale comparable to medical doctors, with far less skill or education (they receive pay bonuses for training equivalent to CEUs amongst engineers, and we are required to take CEUs just to retain our license). Learning through this evolution has lead to the idea of spending every last dollar on the least capable students without results, and removing expenditure for those student who are capable. In essence leveling the educational skills trained to those in public schools to the level of the least competant that a school can graduate without getting in too serious of trouble. The public school system is in trouble in my mind because it is corrupted by labor unions, programs meant to attempt to bring about equivalence in knowledge and intelligence amongst all student no matter what, and the decline of techers in the technical skills they are menat to teach in favor of skills about learning theories and political correctness (which are never correct anyways).

Actually, the jury is still out on the source of human intelligence; I simply picked genetics to make a point. I believe davah (original poster) may have meant to say that media and public figures seem to be getting dumber.

And I don't purport to be any sort of expert on the matter of human intelligence, but I do know that psychologists, psychiatrists and phrenologists have debated the issue for years, and there's a few more than three factors being considered.

Educators have complained along with parents that the public education system (in the US anyway) has been dumbed down little by little so that every person, no matter whether they're capable of learning at an average level or not, so that they won't feel badly about themselves. Horse hockey! Whatever happened to the days when one had to learn stuff or work at a meanial job? It's still here, but our poorly educated dumb kids who have been working at a hamburger joint for the ten years since reeceiving a high school diploma, feel better about themselves.

phrenologist, hmm are those boney ridges on our skulls really that telling a scientific method to consider their debate. Plus i am not sure that any jury is out on the three categories i listed for almost any human trait those are the underlying factors. Though the epigenetic factors were just discovered by science (molecular biologist and biochemists research). Now the specific factors that lie in those categories of factors are not well identified, though they are knwon to exist. More intelligent parents, even if they are not involved in the childs development, tend to have children with a higher intelligence more frequently than others. Also, a variety of environmental factor, such as education, chemical exposures, abuse, etc.. have been shown to demonstratably effect a childs intellectual development and therefore their intelligence. Also, any genetic factor can be blocked or turned off by epigenetic factors, so this can account for the variability in children born to more intelligent parents, or the occureence of higher intelligence in children born to less intelligent parents (though environmental factors can account for it sometimes and to some degree).

Regarding menial jobs, you should keep in mind that many of the menial labor jobs like fast food service are provided by immigrant labor. Why would children be motivated to learn or work in any society where their idols have even less education and skill, and earn more than every physicist alive through the entire 20th century, by the time they are 30. If Paris Hilton doesn't have to know anything about anything to earn 1 million except show up for her own jail release party in las vegas, or those blondes on that suntan show that got a spin off off their own for being insanely lazy and stupid on television earn more in a week than all of last years noble laureates, why would any child even consider being educated. And, how can the 20 something year old teachers, who themselves have a substandard education relative to all the other majors in a university and grew up idolizing MTV spring break hosts and baywatch personalities, supposed to motivate children to work hard and learn to advance their lives. This also benefits politicians as it affords them the ability to throw words science around to validate conjecture, hypothesis, and myth intermixed with some simple science to support their political position without any real scientific scrutiny. Well educated people tend to have some understanding of a scientific method, and can derive questions that challenge the poorly educated politicians who cheated, charmed their way through, otherwise influenced educational officials, and/or bought their educations. I believe it was boss Tweed who once railed that he was not concerned about the articles that detailed his corruption and had been running since much earlier in his career, because his constituents could not read, but those damned cartoons in the newpapers of new york city everyone understood. Education of the masses, or even a few who can explain the situation to the masses in a language they understand, can limit the political ambitions of some more corrupt figures.

Of course i would not suspect educators of conspiring to dumb down society. They just tend to focus on the squeaky wheel like most everyone, and for many decades now the idea of trying to promote specific underperforming ethnic groups or female in education, trying to be more inclusion of special interests concerns, trying to work with less money, cnsiderations of the emotional development of problem children and trying to capture every student into graduating has become the drive above all else in our educational systems. There have been many experimental educational programs implemented that all draw large amounts of resources away from the traditional education of the basic student to address the sqeaky wheels. The one good thing is see is the federal testing programs for advancement. Now at least school board have to demonstrate, to some degree, the effective use of their funding. As it turns out many school are finding they just do not have the capabilities to actually teach children, and are underperforming. They are having to address this issue. Admittedly, many are looking for the loopholes to improve their scores rather than addressing the problem directly by hiring staff who get through to the students, and evaluating the differences in public school requirements for teachers compared to the much more productive private schools. Also, I think public schools need the option to take more punitive actions against severely problematic children, to get them somewhat prepared to learn and not disrupt learning for others. And, maybe school districts need to take a business approach to some of their programs and evaluate the cost benefits to see if they are actually getting any performance out of the programs. It seems, much like politics, that there has not been any QA/QC and accountability for many school districts for years. If a teacher has childern come into class, who exit without any more educational knowledge then they entered with, and this is recurrent, they should not be transferred and it should go on their public record as to why they were terminated. Right now school districts have a ton of problem trying to terminate a teacher, and can will directly indicate termination for poor performance on a record for fear of a lawsuit. So those teacher can just move to another district for 5 or 10 years, or get transferred internally much like catholic priest who like boys.

Thats a pretty funny title. Using the word in the way it defines.

There's alot uv ins & outs & wut-hav-youz on this issue. I dont think its going to last much longer.

The biggest problem iz that our primary educational system iz set up to make us into obedient cattle. It starts with the spelling. 'Dont think, just do az we say. Tradition & conformity are more important than lojik & efficiency. Obey or your life will suck.' So for the 1st 3 yearz, kidz in english speaking countriez are spending a majority uv their time learning how to read & write while kidz in countries with sensibly spelled languagez are already learning real subjects. And not only do they spend way more time, but the failiure rate iz atrocious!

In addition to that, the textbooks often contain major mistakes & ommisionz, bad teacherz cant get fired & good wunz arent payed better, scholastic standardz are too slack, they arent even trying to keep up with the accelerating pace uv scienctific & tek knowledge and 5,000 yirz uv philosophical insight iz completely ignored.

All this & they still manage to spend 20,000$ per student per yir!

I wonder how much of that $20,000 is going towards administrators. Since it appears there are many more administrators in public school systems that you find in private schools. I wonder if someone ever did a complete accounting break down and segregated out the amdinstrative cost for public schools. I bet we would be surprised how much all that school "management" was costing with the poor performance, relative to private schools. This is one benefit to allowing children the option to attend private schools with public funding, they allow a comparison to evaluate perfomance. No longer can public schools simply imply that it is somehow the difference in the children themselves that leads to the underperformance.

Regarding reading and writing, well that has been a primary consideration in education world wide for nearly ever. At one time people spent much of their childhood learning latin, so it is very important to be able to maintain communication and effectively communicate ideas. The importance of reading and writing problably should not be underestimated. However, you also need to have some skills to provide some content to write about, otherwise it is useless. Even physics would be hard to discuss between people who only spoke separate languages, though people who are fluent in multiple languages having a conversation about sunset tan is pointless.

In both our pubic servants and our attorneys. But then how will they hide their misdeeds?

Brad

Yes, they are idiots, sir. The question remains..... "what kind of idiots are they".....

Although I have been and will continue to be very busy for the rest of this month, I could not resist a few comments on this thread.

I blame the "Educationalists" for the problems in this area of numeracy and literacy.

First let me define educationalists:- "Specialists in educational theory.........i.e. those whom direct the course contents and lecturers of institutions that train teachers. In my mind they are extremely powerful and dangerous people.

Most of the teachers in primary and secondary schools go straight from school into a teachers training institution and then into the teaching profession with no experience of life, have been tied into the education system and educationalists all their lives. They know no different.........and the end of the matter is that they believe what they are taught, because they have no "life" experiences to fall back on to test whether what they are taught is the truth..............they do not realise that the material they have grasped at is the philosophies of a few educationalists.

Do not discipline children, condition them like Pavlov's dogs or Skinner's rats, just as an example. NEVER, EVER fail a student because it may cause deep psychological problems.................it doesn't matter if they do not pass English or mathematics, promote the students to the next grade................is it any wonder that we have so many younger people and children in the Western world that are illiterate in numeric and literary skills.

There are probably many other points that could be discussed.............this is but a couple of problems as I see it.

I find it remarkable that I hear likewise commentary from many differrent nations. I've heard the same from the US, UK, Canada and now Australia.

I've also heard this from experienced teachers and other professionals and, sad to say, from the Pavlovian school of trained true believers.

This leads me to suspect that there exists a formula for public education that has been degrading each nations educational level for some many years. It perhaps accomodates an aura of exclusivity amongst schools that cater to either those who are gifted or those who can afford private schooling....the rest will get passing grades ostensibly because it is a waste of time, effort and money to continue their educational process.

To that end, albeit with some rare exceptions, I have seen arts and technical programs completely disappear from the curriculums of Canada.

And wut do all theze countriez hav in common? English!

Of course so do the most prestigious private schools and universities, so..

"That's simplode a three four you to say." - Stanley Unwin.

Hi Duckinthepond,

I have been involved in teaching for the past 38 years. When I left Her Majesty's employ (R.A.N.) I was employed by the Education Dept. as a Trade Teacher in Fitting and Machining as well as taking over several subjects of the Mechanical Technicians Certificate from the then Institute of Technology (now a uini).

Now THAT is a story of educational stupidity in itself.

Getting back to the original story...............one of the conditions of employment was that all teachers would gain their diploma of Teaching. I completed the first year with no hassles.........well not many.

However, come the second year, things started to go "pear shaped"..............enter, psychology of education.............Skinner's rats, Pavlov's dogs, Dr. Benjamin Spock (before his stint in jail as a conscientious objector), etc,etc.............I started questioning everything and after receiving 2/10 for an essay that started off with "In your opinion...............? I gave them my opinion and they didn't like............reason being..........I did not feed them back the bullshit that they had taught...........I told them where to shove their course.........without any niceties.

Over a period of about a further 8 years I tried it another 3 times, finishing with the same results(anywhere from 3-6 months into the course)..............needless to say, I never did receive my Dip.T. I was counselled several times, all to no avail.

Whilst I admit I suffered financially for my stand, I never let the bastards get me down. In the late nineties a private training organization took over all maritime subjects, including Marine Engineering which I had taught since 1979.

In 2004 I received my Certificate 4 in Training and Assessment, all with recognition of prior learning.........I am virtually the boss in ME because no one else knows anything about it. I retired in December last year.........I am back working part time 5 days a week and getting $300/day for it................still no Dip T.

Greetings Mobi

Having lectured a few times over the years I have come to speak with many teachers on the subject of 'teachers college' and have been frightened by what I have learned. I have learned that The elitist cadre who govern that college are nothing less than self serving and self promoting autocrats and 'education' is nothing more than a backdrop mental exercise that sustains their employment.

Their platform has been to close all technical and arts programs throughout this country to conveniently accomodate, and I quote, "the information age". Unfortunately their idea of what makes up the info age did not quite take into account the continuing evolution of computer technology the consequence of which resulted in huge expenditures in continuous retrofitting....so much so that those once technical schools (machining, drafting, arts etc) have been permanently closed down. I should point out that it was industry that donated those milling, lathes, cnc machines etc to those same schools at no cost to the taxpayer ( I know, I bought a Bridgeport and a Myford for next to nothing from the Board of Education).

I also removed my kids from the system. At the age of ten my son and daughter knew the fundamentals of mechanics (they worked with the tool and die guys). Today my son is a design engineer and my daughter teaches calculus at the university. This, after I was threatened by the Board .......long story.

Meanwhile, I'm seriously considering throwing my self furling jib works into the drink. Any good ones out there?

so much so that those once technical schools (machining, drafting, arts etc) have been permanently closed down. I should point out that it was industry that donated those milling, lathes, cnc machines etc to those same schools at no cost to the taxpayer

Same thing in Australia.............guess what................the government is now spending millions replacing technical colleges.

Another point..............many years ago apprentice numbers began falling at a quite an alarming rate...........we teachers at the grass roots level said "This is not good, what are you doing?...............Has the government "lost it".............they were told of what the repercussions would be............Australia has an extreme shortage of skilled workers in most trade areas.

The elitist cadre who govern that college are nothing less than self serving and self promoting autocrats and 'education' is nothing more than a backdrop mental exercise that sustains their employment.

As I pointed out previously............very, very dangerous people and some of the are nothing but academic dick heads, that do not know their arsehole from their elbow.

Apologies for any offence..........BUT...........I feel extremely angry that these people have so much power.............their influence on the education system in any country could be devastating.

It started in Canada with the Hall-Dennis report. I call it the 'flower power' approach to education.

Yep...........Whatever you call it, it is not good!!

I am not sure that the school districts necessarily view thier students as a waste of time and money to educate completely (some do to some degree obviously). I think, that educational theory has become a large experiment in public education, every new theory gets implemented without any sound supporting evidence for it performance. Additionally, the thing a District really does not want is bad press, so every unhappy parent special interest group can immediately change the entire educational process, just to avoid the press. So some students parents complain about music, next year musci becomes the priority. If special needs children are not passing the SATs at the same performance as the honors students of other parnets, next year they get more teachers and teachers aids. Also, I found out from my sister here recently, that a teacher well qualified in math or science does not get paid more, though they are in high demand, but one bilingual in spanish or vietnamese, or trained in special needs gets an automatic wage increase no matter the level of training in primary educational skills. she has quit a number of Districts because here job as a bilingual teacher was to primarily baby sit children and sometimes she would be asked to teach subjects she knew very little about and felt underqualified to teach just because she spoke spanish, but she does make much more money then her qualified counterparts who don't speak english (this is why she got qualified in special needs and spanish).

Hi MOBI,

Let me blame with you, I'm on holidays and I've recovered more energy to blame!!!

I fully agree with you. I partially work as lecturer on mechanical engineering from 20 years ago. Fortunately I'm a sort of "free lance" contracted by the University because I have the required degree and they say I'm a "recognized expert who works in the industrial field".Because of that, I'm not subjected to pass through all this "how-to-teach courses", but I remember when I began as a laboratory teacher, sometimes I had to explain some basic principles to some students in order they could understand what they were doing and a student suddenly "saw" and said "Hey! I understand it!!! Why it hasn't been so explained in the theory classroom?.

I have to recognize just this moments have make me feel proud and keep on teaching.

I think the first thing we should teach (even before maths or language) is that our (and therefore their) actual status is the result of many years of effort and to "stamp" in their minds that nobody must expect to get anything without effort. (A sort of thermodynamics principle applied to behaviour)

Kind regards

I too have experienced that light of understanding dawning in someone's eyes, and it recharges my batteries every time too! I like your "behavioral thermodynamics" allusion.

My biggest problem is with the "No Child Left Behind" theme of teaching. It seems we are no longer attempting to teach our young to the Nth degree, but scaling back the teaching to make it easier for all to pass the basic learning. Bell curves are used to pass some of the children, but what does this do for the higher intellect?

Not everyone will be Doctors Lawyers or Engineers. Someone will need to fill the positions of manual laborers. Those with less of an aptitude to learn will most likely fill these positions. It seems that since everything is so much easier to obtain answers to, that many of the students can give you the correct answers to mathematical equations but not the reasoning behind what all those numbers and formulas are all about.

Yes, there does seem to be a "Dumbing Down" and much can be associated with the ease of accessing information and the lack of ability or even the desire to learn. Whenever my children would ask me "Why do I have to learn that?" or "I can always get that off the computer!" I would ask them to "Repeat after me!"

Will that be paper or plastic? or Would you like fries with that?

My biggest problem is with the "No Child Left Behind" theme of teaching.

The word FAILURE, maybe disappearing from school vocabulary and school report cards, however, unfortunate as this may be, when kids get a real job in the real world there still is (I hope) failure.........and............they had better get used to the word.

You have to admit that at least in the US the idea of academic testing to evaluate schools and teachers performance is a good step towards accountability. Now at least we have some idea who is performing and who is not. Of course, it is a nice flowery word to use, because no parent wants to hear a program name like 20% of the children will not pass. I think an underlying problem arises that rather than try to improve teaching efforts, many District try to find loopholes and methods to circumvent the testing as a QA/QC step to their benefit. Districts should be improving efforts to teach the subject matter that falls within the parameters of testing, and not address methods to directly pass the test or manipulate their enrollment numbers to reflect better performance. One District, i believe it was in Houston, was transferrinf poor performing students around to utilize the enrollment processing papaerwok delays to keep the students off the Districts performance rolls. The administratiors who promulgate such activities should be prosecuted for fraud and malfeasance. Maybe if we took a strong tact with educators about doing their jobs correctly, send a few principals to prison and we might see some performance. Public school educational administrators make more than most lincesned non-management engineers in the US. Maybe we could put them on a direct performance program where they get a contract and payment based on the long term performance of each child through to college. We can pay them for each child who graduates and passes the national exam some small amount, and like 3 times that for each that gets accepted into a certified university and achieves some minimum SAT score, and maybe bonuses for each that passes Advanced Placement exams, etc.. Figure a base rate of $18.36 a year for just passing students (=30,000 a year for 5 classes of students through high scholl graduation), and like $55 per year per student who meets the minimum SATs and gets accepted to a university, and an additional bonus of $3 per AP exam passed. I bet administrators would care a great deal more about the performance of their students and teachers when it hits their wallets. Of course they might try then to modify the exams to improve the scoring performance.

Amazing........the Canadian Hall-Dennis report of 1968 used those exact words...."no child left behind". I'm curious whether this was the first analysis of its kind or whether it mirrored another.

Behind those 'flowery' words was what I believe a hidden economic agenda to make education cheaper.

Either way it or another like it seems to have influenced education policy in many countries.

If they meant to give children extra time and personal assistance to understanding the course I would feel it was a good idea. Unfortunately there are many times a child receives a passing grade and has no idea what they were talking about. Then they go on to the next class, ie:physics2 and don't have a clue as to what was discussed in basic physics !

Behind those 'flowery' words was what I believe a hidden economic agenda to make education cheaper.

Odd the Nazi gun control reads almost word for word of many of the gun control agendas of the US and other countries. The pen is mightier than the sword. Remove the sword and blunt the pen?

But who benefits in the long run? Not the governments they only get short term benefits. Then again our greedy attorney based politicians only care about on their watch not on our future. And a ignorant status quo facilitates their ability to take advantage of the system for personal gain.

Guess I don't need my tinfoil hat for that one.

Brad

Hav you seen the movie 'Idiocracy'? I think we are haf way there already.

The status quo does seem to favor that direction, the path well traveled.

Conform or be cast out sheople, just follow the Jones (no offence to the Jones). Not the path least followed, you would have to think and discern for yourself, if you do/dare.

Public school should be labeled convictions for the conformist.

In the 1920's The US military defined Democracy as a communist socialism of the masses resulting in mobocracy.

Mobs are emotional not logical. Much of the political power base is from Mob Thinking.

Brad

This is what Julius Caesar based his attempt to overthrow the Republic on. Buy the mobs favor now, usually quite cheaply too, and they'll let you rule everything. Of course they are also fickle and forget easily. You'd be surprised how much favor a little bit of bread will buy. Also, there is Alcibides who used the inherent desires of the masses to go to war when not at war, to take from others, and then gained the advantage of not actually having to go to war himself against a mcuh larger City state, syracuse, and lose his honor. Our masses are not much different, clamoring for war on a whim, until they or their children are the ones who must fight and die. Same type of thing happens in our trade agreements, tell people they will get rich from a trade agreement and they never stop to try and figure out how it works. The citizens of the US, in general, can not make money from free trade with China or Mexico, they can not afford anything we sell. A few wealthy multinational corporations, however, can profit from the cheap labor.

Its True! We humanz are gullible idiots.

I dont think we hav to be, but The Powerz That Be like it this way, so we are raized to accept any kind uv nonsense without question.

Right! Makes us good little consumers of whatever predigested pap they care to feed us...

Pssst......I got some predigested unobtanium with a tonne of He3 for sale. Mix 'em in a blender, fire up the old reactor, stir lightly, add ice and an olive..........

What's that!!!!!!

Mark Antony Friends, Ronans and countrymen, lend me your ears...........

Julius Caesar What have you got in that sack?

Mark Antony Ears

Here EnviroMan..........was that pap..................or crap??????

Well the school system in Japan is all geared to making submissive worker drones, then the there is also the inept communication culture (and shame culture) that makes mental instability in some larger hence the increase of stressed out knife attacks.

I hope education in the west is not gearing to this system.

I work in japan and the the whole i always agree with the boss culture is sometimes annoying, it always gives consternation when i do not agree with my boss, my Japanese co-workers can't comprehend it

In Canada there is no Japanese model for schooling although there are parents I know who insist that their child does nothing other than study with no time for exploration or play.

I don't know about knife attacks but I have worked with Japanese technologists and discovered that many suffer from stress related health problems.

One week of fishing, camping and doing nothing usually cures them for the year.

..Wha'eva'...

Del